Perfect Present
by Lil-Samuu
Summary: Festive fluffy one-shot set after the game. Sheelos and Colloyd. Zelos tries to think of the perfect present for Sheena.


One-shot slightly festive fluffy fic, set after the game, featuring Zelos, Lloyd, Sheena and Colette. Sheelos and Colloyd.

As I did in the other fic I wrote recently I've assumed that the characters wouldn't celebrate Christmas but that they would probably celebrate a winter festival of some sort.

Dedication: for Minnie. I hope that you like this and that you find that it fits the prompt that you suggested. :)

Disclaimer: I don't own Tales of Symphonia. I believe it belongs to Namco.

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One of the advantages of having spent so much time around his friends, Lloyd thought, was that he was able to understand them very well, sometimes without them even saying a word. Now was one of those times, although Zelos hadn't said anything Lloyd could tell that something was bothering him. Of course the exaggerated sighing his friend was doing helped him work that out too.

"What's wrong?" he asked as he turned to face his friend.

"Oh, nothing, nothing's wrong," Zelos replied.

"Something must be wrong, otherwise you wouldn't be doing all of that sighing," Lloyd said.

"OK bud, as you're insisting on me telling you, it's the winter festival," his friend said, causing Lloyd to raise an eyebrow slightly.

"What about the winter festival?" he asked.

"What are you getting Colette this year? I bet it's something really nice and special," Zelos said.

"Well, if you promise to keep this a secret I'll tell you. I've made her a wooden sewing box, I thought it'd be something she'd like, I even found some really cute fabric with a dog print on it to put on the lids. And I've bought her a really fluffy plush toy dog," Lloyd said, smiling as he thought about Colette's reaction to the gifts and ignoring the fact that Zelos had avoided answering his question.

"See, you've just proved my point, you've made her something special. Any guy can go out and buy jewellery or clothes or flowers or whatever. I want to get Sheena something different so that she knows I put some effort into it and that I think she's special. Nothing like the gifts the women in Meltokio used to give to me," Zelos explained.

"Oh, I can help you make something if you want," Lloyd offered, excited at the prospect of helping his friend with a craft project.

"But what? Jewellery and carvings and stuff is your thing, and besides, I'd like it to be something I made all by myself, and I don't think I have time to learn how to make something like that before the festival," Zelos said.

"Has Sheena dropped any hints about gifts? Is there anything you think she'd like?" Lloyd asked.

"Well she did like a scarf we saw once that was made out of really really soft wool…" Zelos thought out loud.

"Perfect, get Colette to teach you how to knit. I'm sure you can learn how to do that quickly, it's just winding bits of wool around some sticks I think," Lloyd suggested.

"That is actually a pretty good idea bud! I knew there was a reason why I kept you around," Zelos beamed, patting his friend on the back before going to find Colette.

A couple of weeks later Zelos found himself thinking that, although the idea had seemed perfect it turned out that knitting was a lot more complicated than just 'winding bits of wool around some sticks'. It had been good that Colette seemed to have infinite patience, she'd needed it as he'd managed, at the start of the project, to totally fail to grasp even the concept of how to cast on correctly and found he had a habit of stretching the wool a little bit too much. Somehow he'd even managed to break a needle.

Seeing the look on Sheena's face, however, made it all worth it. Although the scarf might not be quite as neatly knitted as the one they'd seen in the shop it would still keep her warm, and the fact that it wasn't quite perfect would remind her of the fact that he'd made it for her. He chuckled as Sheena made an almost purr-like noise as she felt how soft the wool he'd used to knit the scarf was then he grinned as she wrapped him up in a big hug.

"Thank you, it's beautiful. Now I can see why you needed so much time for the winter festival secret you were trying so hard to hide," Sheena smiled.

"I'm glad you like it," Zelos smiled back at her, happy that she was pleased with the gift.

He turned to look over at Colette, about to say thank you to her again for teaching him to knit. He closed his mouth, however, when he noticed that she was already speaking. Curled up on Lloyd's lap she had named the plush toy dog and had moved on to naming all of the dogs on the fabric on top of her new sewing box. Lloyd had a slightly bemused expression on his face which, along with the way Colette seemed so very contented to pick out names for all of the dogs, caused him to laugh. It was nice to see that some things never changed.


End file.
